[Tfug] DSL Problem

[Phil Warner]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:13:20 -0700
Jim Secan <jim at nwra.com> wrote:

> I'm having a hair-ripping-out problem interfacing with the Internet
> from my home LAN.  I have DSL from QWest/TheRiver using an ActionTEC
> DSL modem that provides DHCP and NAT for my LAN.  The modem links
> into a switch which has two XP machines and an iMac OS X machine
> linked to it.  One of the XP machines has FC3 on it in dual-boot
> configuration.  Both the XP machines and the iMac have no problems
> with the internet connection.
> 
> However.
> 
> While I can ping and traceroute to anywhere I've tried from the FC3
> machine, I have fits when I try to use http (via Firefox).  The
> system has all the latest updates and is running the latest kernel.
> If I try to visit a URL, the browser just sits there and the "I'm
> busy" indicator just spins it's little heart out but no pages are
> served.  If I traceroute to that URL, then (about 90% of the time) I
> can get the browser to "see" that page. Doesn't always work (google
> and yahoo are two exceptions).
> 
> I've run some tests using ethereal, and it looks like it might be a
> DNS problem.  The network settings on the FC3 box show the modem (at
> 192.168.0.1) as the primary DNS (which seems odd) and the ISP's
> secondary DNS as secondary.  If I manually force the primary DNS to
> be the ISP's primary, it helps for a bit but then reverts to the
> modem as primary.  When I look at the ethereal output, I'm seeing the
> response to DNS queries being IP addresses of 1.0.0.0.  This is when
> the browser goes into lala land.
> 
> So, is the problem FC3, the dhcp server, the ISP's setup, a
> combination of two or three of these, or some other thing I haven't
> considered?  I also have this problem with a laptop running FC3 that
> works fine on my office network (which has a Linux DHCP server and
> uses Dakotacom as ISP) but has the identical problem to the desktop
> system when on my home network.
> 

I had this exact problem, with the GT-401 (or something like that,
where it also worked as a wireless AP. The workaround was to change the
configuration in the net scripts (I'm using gentoo, so I'm no longer
sure what FC3 does) to explicitly set the /etc/resolv.conf information.

If you look at the current resolv.conf information, you'll find that
the dns information is set to the Actiontec, rather than theriver.com.

The way I found this out is I telnetted to the actiontec (it's running a
linux kernel) and viewed the messages log; in that log, there were
several dns messages, where the actiontec was working as a proxy dns,
i..e, your machine requests a lookup from the actiontec, the actiontec
subsequently requests a lookup, and fails.  It's rather annoying.

I'm sure others in the FC3-know will be able to help you with the dns
setup in the net scripts, if you don't already know.

Cheers,

--Phil

------------------------------
He:	Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
She:	What?!?  Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains.
		-- Walt Kelly